Unpublish not working automatically in sitecore OOB feature

Question

we are using sitecore 9.0.2 with SXA 1.7.1

in our site we are adding future date in 2 fields called Publish and Unpublish which is OOB feature in sitecore to publish or unpublish item.

Publish is working fine as per future date associated with item automatically.

Unpublish is not happening automatically. Unpublish only works when author publish that item manually when that future date comes.

any thought on this highly appreciated.

Thanks a lot in advance.

Answer 1

That's why you are setting it on field called "Publishable".

It is only enabling / disabling publishing / unpublishing of that particular version in your defined time / date interval.

You still need to "publish" item / version to publish / unpublish it. I was also confused first time using this feature.

In order to make it automatic, you need to have workflow set or set up publishing agent or use Sitecron to do that for you.

Setting Publishing agent

By default Publishing agent is disabled:

<agent type="Sitecore.Tasks.PublishAgent" method="Run" interval="00:00:00">
  <param desc="source database">master</param>
  <param desc="target database">web</param>
  <param desc="mode (full or incremental)">incremental</param>
  <param desc="languages">en, da</param>
</agent>

To enable it just set interval, language and your preferred mode:

<agent type="Sitecore.Tasks.PublishAgent" method="Run" interval="00:00:30">
     <param desc="source database">master</param>
     <param desc="target database">web</param>
     <param desc="mode (full or incremental)">incremental</param>
     <param desc="languages">en, da</param>
</agent>

Agent will look into publishable settings and does publishing / unpublishing for you.